Competing in front of a near-capacity crowd at the San Juan Basin League Duals in Mancos on Feb. 5, the Dove Creek High School wrestling team finished second third overall in the league.
Dove Creek defeated Dolores and Mancos, but lost to Ignacio and Norwood.
“We wrestled hot and cold,” said Dove Creek wrestling coach Shane Baughman. “It probably wasn’t our best outing. Hopefully we got the bad tournament out of the way.”
Leading the way for the Dove Creek were 126-pound junior Case Baughman and 195-pound senior Tyler Knuckles, who finished the duals with 4-0 records. Shane Baughman said that both upperclassmen performed extremely well.
At 106-pounds, Dove Creek junior Colin Hobbs opened the day with an 8-6 overtime decision to Dolores sophomore Brandon Ward before rebounding with three consecutive wins.
“Colin lost in overtime and that was the one that we were hoping to get,” said Shane Baughman. “It was a tough loss.”
Producing similar results to those of Hobbs was 138-pound senior Chance Randolph, who finished 3-1 on the day. Randolph’s lone loss came to Ignacio’s Ethan Appenzeller.
“Some of the matches that we wanted to win, we didn’t win, and that’s frustrating,” said Baughman.
Rhett Quackenbush finished 2-2, Donavan Trudeau finished 2-2, Derek Kibel finished 2-2, Rojelio Keedah finished 1-3 and Ricky Adams finished 1-3.
“Some of the matches that we wanted to win, we didn’t win, and that’s frustrating,” said Shane Baughman. “A couple of our younger kids were winning matches and got pinned. We weren’t happy with that.”
Next up for Dove Creek will be the Class 2A Western Region Tournament, which will take place in Grand Junction on Feb. 14. Fourteen teams will compete in the tournament and the top-four wrestlers in each region will advance to state.